Grannies On Call filling daycare void
Globe and Mail
20/03/07
EXCERPT

VICTORIA -- A desperate and growing shortage of daycare spaces in Victoria means that parents are leaving children with grannies -- but not their own. That's the premise behind Grannies On Call, a year-old business that is matching the city's older population with a boom in births. Victoria mother Patricia Buckler is one of those clients who has turned away from traditional daycare to Grannies On Call....

Ms. Poulson, one of the first Grannies hired, retired from her provincial government job and wanted to supplement her pension. Her child-care skills came from raising her own child and later caring for grandchildren....

Useful it may be, but the Grannies service -- which does not offer five-day-a-week care -- is addressing only a small part of the daycare crunch in Victoria.

Last year, about 2,900 babies were born to women in the Victoria area, but fewer than 100 child-care spaces were available, according to the Victoria Child Care Resource and Referral program.

Pregnant women place their names on wait lists with the faint hope of securing a spot by the time their maternity leave has finished.

Those lists are expected to lengthen. On March 31, the province will lose $455-million in federal funding, which flowed to licensed daycares to cover operational costs. Licensed daycares, which charge about $35 a day for one space, will be short about $40 a child each month.

The facilities will have to increase their rates or close, compounding the problem, said Enid Elliot, the chair of the Victoria Regional Child Care Council. "People are feeling really, really frustrated," Ms. Elliot said.... Paid $10 an hour (Grannies On Call charges $14 an hour for a minimum of three hours), ... But the Grannies aren't without their shortcomings.

There's been the odd heart attack, but Grannies On Call has a lot of insurance coverage.

Some Grannies aren't up to date with technology or the latest child-care philosophies, but Ms. Ballinger "coaches" her charges.

And Grannies are forbidden to administer medicine or drive.

While Ms. Elliot ... she is concerned that an unregulated and fragmented system is developing. "There is a place for some of these things," she said, but she wonders about their quality.

The lack of choice has created some desperate scenarios where parents are forced to use child care that may not be the best for their children, Ms. Elliot said.

"Children pay in the end," she said....